The Hours of Darkness
by Cudae
Summary: The Sickle of the Valar, the Valacirca, a sign to those who would see it. It challenges Melkor in the darkness. Caranthir sees the seven stars of its blade and remembers, remembers what he has done and thinks of what he will do. Deep shadows of romance
1. Part One

Title:  The Hours of Darkness

Author: Cúdae

Rating: PG-13 for theme.

Summary:  The Sickle of the Valar, the Valacirca, a sign to those who would see it.  It challenges Melkor in the darkness.  Caranthir sees the seven stars of its blade and remembers, remembers what he has done and thinks of what he will do.  Deep shadows of romance.  A short, two part story.

Disclaimer:  All characters and constellations created by Tolkien, no copyright infringement intended, no profit being made.  

It is a dark night.  There are clouds overhead, scraping pieces of the sky and carrying them away in a grey mist.  The moon glimmers, a thin slit in the deepness.  The world is silent and still.  Far away down a long corridor, in a long hall, in a long forgotten place, there is movement.  A rustle of clothes, a pound of a heart, a quick gasp of breath.  Then the silence resumes.  

It is oppressive, a crushing sound like a thousand ocean waves crashing on the rocks.  The sound presses into the ears and crushes the thoughts.  Everything is gone.  Save the silence.  The wind cannot even find the strength to fight it.  This silence envelops all it touches, encasing them in a sturdy box of wood none can touch, molding them into a thing without thought, without feeling.  

My soul screams in this silence, fighting it off like a thousand foes.  

And she, she sleeps soundly beside me, never noticing the resounding noise of our home.  She cannot hear the taunting, laughing voices of the darkness.  Like a blade to the flesh, she murmurs Quenya words to unseen visitor.  Her eyes, open to the moon, watch what no other can see.  Watch what I cannot see.  We are not one… we are not one soul.  I have no escape from the quiet as she has.  I cannot share in her dreams, I cannot see the things she sees, and I cannot breathe the air she breathes.  In her dreams.  We are not one.  

Her eyes dart closed, and then open again like a shy girl's eyes.  Like the eyes of the girl I once knew.  With her hair in long braids, she ran from me.  She ran, her dress catching the twigs of the earth.  I followed her to a stream, to a place where she would return in later years, when both of us where older.  She laughed a sound to mock the rippling of water around the cool pebbles.  And I stood in silence, forgetting the voice of Maedhros I had not hearkened to, for I heard only her laugh.

Her laugh…  I have not heard it in many long years.  Her smiles seem even fewer than her laughs.  I know there is darkness in her mind, like the silence in my own.

The sound of feet shuffles past our door.  I rise and look into the hall.  Nothing.  There is no one.  The silence curls itself around my neck, threatening as a noose.

"Maglor?"

The soft sound escapes my mouth unbidden.  No sound replies and I mock my own foolishness.  How many years has it been since I cried last for Maglor?  How many years has it been since last he heard me?  How many years since he came?  

My feet move me without command.  Into the hall and through the door at the farthest end, I walk.  Silence extends in all directions.  A low moan echoes through the quiet, suppressing the dark peace with its own sorrow.  I can see it coming, rippling the air like a boat in the water.  The sound presses toward me until it presses against my face.  It blinds me and tears at my skin.  My hair is whipped back from my face and my lungs are caught in the sound only my ears can feel.   

And then, it is gone.

I turn to watch it continue on its path, wondering how many others will face it this night and I realize where I am.  I followed by feet unknowingly to the world outside.  There are many sounds out here, but none so loud as the cricket's mournful cry.  Yet still, silence presses against me, eating at me- even when there are other sounds to feast upon.  

I turn back to the door, expecting in some deep part of my essence for her to have woken and to have followed me.  The doorway yawns garishly empty.  Why should she come?  It has been so long since we last probed the depths of one another's souls; I fear she has forgotten me.  

I remember her.  Her spirit runs deeper than the ocean and farther than the sky.  I glimpsed only the smallest part of it.  It was beautiful.  Her fea shone like a Silmaril, yet brighter and more magnificent in my eyes.  She in turn reached for the depths of my self, but walls long in the building blocked her and she retreated.  I did not spoil her beauty, yet it was spoilt.  Little may take the place of the Silmarils in my mind now.  Her beauty seems dimmed.

A soft step, like that of a child, reaches me.  I turn to the trees and remember.  There had been a day when she stepped out of the trees and came to me, folding her arms around my shoulders and holding captive my eyes.  Her father was a stern man, and he called for her to return home.  She looked away from me and her embrace fell loose.  Then she was gone, a slim shadow in the muted light.  

Meadhros had called me fortunate when I went back to my family's home that night.  I stared blankly into his face, faintly aware that he was far taller than I was.  Now, alone in the nighttime silence, I wonder what he knew.  I wonder what he knows.  

Meadhros is a rock, strong and cold, now.  Yet I remember him when he was warm.  I remember when he was more than the ally of my people; I remember when he was my brother.  The silence presses in on me again.  It chokes me and bears me to my knees.  

I look to the sky, appealing to the Valar for their aid, knowing they have forsaken me.

I scan the heavens, waiting for Varda to answer my pleas.  She answers them with a craft of the ancient days and I stand transfixed, staring at that which I have always seen, but seeing that which I have not.

- - -     

To be continued in Part 2.

_I hope you enjoyed.  Constructive criticism is more than welcome._  


	2. Part Two

Disclaimer:  All characters and constellations are the creation of JRR Tolkien and therefore do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: I realize now that I probably could have gotten away with rating this- at the most- PG, but I'll stick with the current rating since there is some violence in this chapter towards two people you might not expect (well one you might, the other probably not).  Other notes are at the end.

Part Two

A silent scream echoes through the land.  I feel it in my soul and I wonder.  I wonder that I should never rest and that I should see and hear that for which others would call me mad.

They already think one of my brothers is mad.  

But perhaps he is not.  Perhaps he only hears what others cannot hear.  He mocks our deafness in his own and laughs in silence at our silence.

I am not mad.  The blade swings closer to me as I follow my feet down a path, a path that is strange without sun or moon light.  Only strange starlight to tell me green from deepest blue.

My hand trails in the water.  And there is silence all around.  The silence is not the peaceful silence of the night, but the cascading silence of times forgotten.  It is silence that bears the listener over the falls to the rocks below.

Water and wind are the strongest forces.  Yet they are weakened to bending blades of grass in this.

Silence.  

She does not follow where my footsteps lead.  She does not follow in my dreams.  Only her eyes may follow me.  For my soul is shared by none.

She cannot dance my dance, yet she dances with me.  And in the darkness of one another we both dance.  She dances in darkness like ice to my touch and I in darkness like the deep of a flame.

The Valacirca marks me, eyes me as an archer would.

I remember.  I remember her scent, softer spring, but now cold like winter.  She did not cross the ice, yet her face marks her as one who did.  She followed in my dance from Valinor, followed in my steps everywhere that I went as I followed my father. 

My hand cups water from the lake and I lift it to my lips.

Does she wait for me?  Does she miss me when I am gone?  Her face hovers before my eyes, and her mouth moves to form words.  I cannot hear them and I move closer to her, hoping to catch even one word of her voice.

But the silence grips my shoulders and pulls me back.  It blinds me so I cannot see and gags me so I cannot speak.  I recognize the hands on my shoulders, the cloth on my eyes and in my mouth as Maedhros' doing.  He tells me to control my anger, to channel what I have, to beat him in the dark.

And beat him I do, in vengeful anger long held.  Maglor restrained me under the trees that night as I clawed the cloth on my face gone and shouted words I would regret into my brother's face.  Maedhros was knelt on the ground, one hand clutching the opposite arm.  Anger welled up in me at seeing him injured and Maglor's grip became stronger until the blood was cut off from my hands.  

I would have killed them both.

This time I am different.  I do not fight; merely let the silence claim me.  I do not scream, for I have allowed silence to reign.  Nor do I hear, for the silence consumes all other sounds.

Again I am on my feet, following a path I know well but do not recognize.  My memory tells me of a time when I wandered paths with her hand in my hand.  The leaves of the trees decorated her face with shadow patterns, yet her eyes remained unclouded, undimmed.

A soft shadow plays in the doorway to our home.  I see another shadow.  My own.  As I move toward her I push her to the ground, my anger is unknown to her.  She does not understand.  Again and again I hit her on the ground.  Again and again I take small pieces of satisfaction that I may make one person bleed.  Blood on her body, bruises on her face.  My anger turns to passion and I wound her again.

But nothing changes.  

I see her shadow in the door to our home, as a soft shadow danced silhouetted once in her home.  She never danced again, save with my spirit to lead her.   Nothing changes.  Silence suffocates me once more.  I feel my fea weaken under its power, weaken without emotion to the power of an emotionless force.

I see her there, a candle in her hand.  Hope I have not known rises in my chest.  

Yet still, silence crashes over me like waves.  But with her there, only a few steps away, it is different silence. 

I reach her in the doorway and smile at the way the flickering light plays over her skin.  She neither smiles nor meets my eyes.

"An urgent message has arrived from your brother."

I do not hear her words, for I relish in the silence now.  I hear only the music of her voice, that which blends with the deafening noise of nothingness.  She should have been a singer.

In the strange light I feel her hand on my face.  I hear her vow to follow me to Middle-Earth, when all the world told her to stay behind, to reject the madness of Feanor and his sons, to be wise.  Her family named her a fool.  In darkness we fled with my family and our followers.  She stayed forever by my side, shining with all the light of the diminished two trees.  A Silmaril upon her brow would leave no doubt that she was most beautiful.

Her voice is cool when it breaks the quiet again.

"You will march with your brothers on Doriath.  For Dior Eluchil wears the Silmaril."

The silence overtakes me again.  It bears me to my knees in agony.  We are not one… We have never been one… We cannot be one…  

We are not one.

The silence is oppressive.  And the Valacirca waits menacingly above my head.  It warns me, but of what?

End.

---

Notes for canon-ness:

I fully admit to taking some liberties with canon in this.  But here is what the story itself is based upon.

1) The Valacirca, or Sickle of the Valar, was set in the sky by Varda as a challenge to Melkor and a sign of doom- which is appropriate in this case.  The Valacirca being a warning as well is my own interpretation stemming from this.

2) The setting of this is Ramdal, where Caranthir, with the remainder of his people, fled with Amrod and Amras after Thargelion was ravaged by orcs.

3) Evidence for Caranthir's wife is found in Volume 12 of the Histories, the Peoples of Middle-Earth, in _Of Dwarves and Men_ here:

            "…Others who were wedded were Maelor [Maglor], Caranthir."

_I hope you have enjoyed this.  Constructive criticism is very much welcome.  _


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